Grohe faucet to garden hose thread

[pincorrect]

This isn't a huge project, but it may help someone in the same situation. Our kitchen sink has a Grohe spray faucet. Totally useless for hooking up a chiller or bottle washer. (I really gotta get a utility sink!)

I finally put something together that works (after trying a couple really ridiculous solutions). The detachable spray head terminates in plastic piece consisting of a coarse (no doubt metric) thread (closest to the spray head) followed by a 1" (er 25mm) pipe into which the spray hose is inserted. An o-ring on the hose makes that water-tight, and a ferrule (I think that's the right term) on the end of the hose screws on to the thread to hold the whole thing together. While the thread is likely metric, it is pretty close to 1/2" MIP.

So I got a 1/2" MIP x 1/2 MIP nipple, a short piece of 1/2" copper pipe, and a 1/2" sweat union (whose only purpose is to beef up the end of the adapter I made). The 1/2" pipe wouldn't quite fit into the nipple, but did after I reamed one end of the nipple out a little with my Dremel. Then I soldered a 1" piece of the pipe one end of the nipple (leaving 1/2" exposed), soldered the union onto that and soldered a 1/2" piece of pipe into the other end of the union (flush to the top of it). (Use lead-free solder.)

Now I needed to ream the end of this union (with the little piece of pipe fitted into it) out a little. I happened to have a 15mm drill bit and a drill press, so that's what I used. If I didn't have that, I would have probably used the Dremel again. This is why I soldered the union on the end of my fitting. It gave me a little more material to work with. If I just soldered a 1 1/2" length of pipe into the nipple, then reamed that out, I was afraid the end of the pipe would be too thin.

After cleaning it all up, I had a fitting that would just fit on the end of the spray hose, and could be secured with the ferrule. This gave me a 1/2" MIP thread to hook up to things. I happened to have a spare garden hose faucet with a 1/2" FIP thread, so I just used that. A 1/2" FIP x 1/2" FIP adapter, plus a 1/2" MIP to Male Garden Hose Thread adapter would also work.

If it's helpful to anyone, I'll go take a few pictures in case my descriptions are unclear. If you have a similar situation, I hope this may help!

 

[mart242]

Sorry for bumping this old thread but I'm in a similar situation and the description isn't too clear <blush>, would you mind posting pics?

Thanks

 

[71westbrewing]

I literally tried searching for this online for a little bit yesterday, but couldn't find anything clearer.

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

I was able to build the same adapter with his instructions. I'll try to attach a photo or two tonight. Here's what I did.

You need a half inch copper coupler (without a stop, so a 1/2 inch pipe can slide all the way through), 1/2 inch copper pipe, maybe around 5 inches to start with, and a 1/2" MPT brass nipple. Also, the supplies to sweat copper. Super easy to do.

First, slide the copper pipe through the brass nipple. It is a snug fit, and I had to sand out the inside of the nipple. Luckily, a dremel sanding drum was a perfect fit and it only took a few seconds to widen the inside of the nipple enough to get the pipe through. Put the pipe in far enough that it sticks out maybe a 1/4" from the nipple (and goes all the way through the nipple and sticks out the other end a couple inches) and sweat the two together at this end.

So, you are left with a nipple on a pipe, with 1/4" sticking out one end and a couple inches sticking out the other end. The two are sweated together at the 1/4" end.

Half way done.

Next, take the 1/2" coupler (with no stop) and slide it onto the long end of the pipe that is sticking out of the coupler. Essentially, you are reinforcing the 1/2" pipe. Push it on so the coupler is flat against where the nipple starts, and sweat it to the pipe (not on the end of the coupler touching the nipple, on the other end). Cut off whatever pipe is sticking out past the end of the coupler so the coupler and pipe are flush.

Last step, and this is a pain without awesome tools I have a dremel, that did the job.

Essentially, when you unscrew the faucet handle from the flex pipe you see a brass (on mine) fitting with an o-ring on it. You want to bore out the inside of the copper pipe (with the coupler around it) so that this brass fitting with o-ring fits in it snugly. I did it with a high speed cutting bit in the dremel and some cutting fluid. Just turned the dremel up to high speed and went around the inside of the end of the pipe. Go really slowly, and check the fit often. Once you can get it on there, you are done.

To use, unscrew the Grohe faucet handle, shove the brass fitting into the end of your pipe, and then slide down the little threaded faucet ferrule thing down to the brass nipple and thread it on. This thread doesn't seal against fluid, just makes sure that the brass faucet hose thing stays seated in your copper pipe.

If I remember I'll snap a few photos tonight. Let me know if there is something unclear

 

[pincorrect]

I took some photos of my version a few days ago, and meant to add them to this post. (BadWolfBrewing, I hope you got my PM with them. Hopefully they helped. It will be interesting to compare your version.)

And here is a crude diagram (I gotta learn Sketchup or something).

 

[pincorrect]

Hmm. Something seems to be going wrong with my img tags??.

Just for now, here are the URL's for the photos I uploaded to ImageShack. I'll try to figure out what I did wrong and edit my post above.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/ncyp.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/4ald.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/bdun.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/5/k280.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/wb71.jpg/

 

[pincorrect]

Hmm. Something seems to be going wrong with my img tags??.

Just for now, here are the URL's for the photos I uploaded to ImageShack. I'll try to figure out what I did wrong and edit my post above.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/ncyp.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/4ald.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/bdun.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/5/k280.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/wb71.jpg/

[Sorry, accidently clicked Save twice]

 

[pincorrect]

BadWolfBrewing, sounds like the two main differences between our version are, first you got a coupling without a stop so you could slide one piece of 1/2" pipe through--a great idea. And second, you shaped the end with a Dremel. I happened to have a 15mm drill and a drill press, which was a super-quick way to do it. But if I didn't, I would have gone the Dremel route also.

 

[pincorrect]

Oh, I see what happened to my IMG tags. I did them right, but I have not reached the required quota for image tags to work (25 --https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f22/img-tags-video-parsing-109880/). I read a LOT, but don't post too often. (Which is probably better than doing the opposite.). Well, now I'm 1 post closer to the threshold.

Sorry for the inconvenience of not having inline pics (for now).

 

[pincorrect]

Sorry it took a while for the pics. How did your adapters work out?

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Mine works great. Makes the brew day much easier

 

[pincorrect]

Yes, before I made mine, I tried one of those bathroom faucet to garden hose thread adapters from the sink in the powder room, which was the closest source other sink I had. Total failure. It would pop right off the threads when you built up any water pressure. Glad it worked out for you.